Issues: Budget and communication between advisers and the team
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Despite the good understanding amongst the members of the GAPS community, there are some existing issues in this GAPS community. After interviewing its members, I noted that the two main issues were the budget and the communication problem between the advisers and the GAPS team.
budget
1) Budget: Every EPICS team has a limited assigned budget for one semester. The budget for GAPS is very limited owing to very few sponsors. Things like the solar panels, charge controls, batteries, AC circuit breaker, etc. do not come for a handful amount and since GAPS is looking to have cheaper alternative power solutions arranged for the Colombian community, it is now a very big challenge for GAPS to be able to do so within the assigned limited budget.
(Rakheja (interview), 17.03.2013).
2) Communication: There seems to be some problem between the understanding of the advisers and the students. Upon interviewing few members of the prototype team in GAPS, I recorded that they were of the opinion that their advisers are not very clear about their demands and hence it proves very difficult for them to meet their needs. The prototype team members also confirmed that their prototype has been rejected by the advisers quite a few times and that they hadn’t received good constructive feedback from the professors.(Das (interview, 14.03.2013))

In spite of all these issues, GAPS still tries to remain focused about its goals and keeps working hard as a team.

Sources:
Das, Rajarshi. Lexis and genres used in GAPS. Interview (Personal). 14 March 2013.
Rakheja, Akshay. Goal of the community, intercommunication and feedback process of the GAPS community. Interview (e-mails). 17 March 2013.